How things look through an Oregonian's eyes

September 23, 2018

I've got a friend who doesn't watch college football games live, only recorded, because he gets so emotionally involved with wanting a team to win, his psychological health suffers. So when he knows the final score, he can watch the game with equanimity.

After being raised to a height of happiness during the first part of yesterday's Oregon - Stanford game, with Oregon leading 24-7 at halftime, bit by bit, mistake by mistake, the Ducks football team chipped away at my emotional high until I felt like shit when Stanford scored a touchdown in overtime and Oregon whiffed on four straight passes into the end zone, losing 38-31.

The scoresheet tells the sorrowful tale. Playing at home, with a Heisman Trophy candidate, Justin Herbert, at quarterback, who completed 25 of 27 passes for 331 yards at the end of regulation, somehow Oregon let Stanford outscore them 31-7 after halftime.

This isn't the first time I've felt hugely let down by the Ducks football team. I can't remember details of those other games, which probably is why my brain allowed me to watch yesterday's game with such a hopeful mood. Until the third quarter.

There the Ducks were, poised to extend their lead to 31-7 with the ball on the one-yard line and four chances to put it in the end zone. But a recovered fumble put them on the 10-yard line, and the next play featured a bad snap from center that was picked up by a Stanford player, who ran 80 yards for a touchdown.

After that, things went from bad to worse. But I was still feeling pretty damn hopeful when the Ducks had the ball at midfield with under a minute to play, leading 31-28. I'll let Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano describe the outcome in his bluntly honest post-game column, "Oregon Ducks loss to Stanford was a collapse."

Afterward, Cristobal was pressed by media on why he didn't have Herbert take a knee a couple of times with under a minute to play facing that second down and 2 situation from midfield. Stanford had only one time out left. Oregon instead handed the ball to freshman running back CJ Verdell, who fought for a few yards and ultimately, coughed up the ball.

"We were trying to get one more first down... two hands on the ball," Cristobal said. "First down, game's over."

Why didn't Oregon take a knee? Why didn't it force Stanford to take its final timeout? Was Verdell the right ball carrier? What exactly is wrong with maybe having to punt in the final seconds? Why didn't it feel comfortable bleeding out Cristobal's first Pac 12 Conference victory? Why hand the ball off there with Stanford's defenders desperately grabbing and pawing at it?

"You could do a lot of things looking back on it," Cristobal said.

Cristobal is right. Dead. Solid. Right.

The Ducks could have done anything there but turn the ball over, then, allow Stanford to race down the field for its second scoring drive in three minutes. Herbert could have taken a knee. They could have done it twice and punted. They could have taken a safety. Heck, Herbert could have raced backward 15 yards, humming the school fight song, performed a pirouette, and thrown the ball to David Shaw on the Stanford sideline and the outcome would have been better. In the simplest scenario, Verdell could have just held onto the ball.

Exactly. This loss obviously was a team effort. There were screwups by numerous players.

But the coaching staff was responsible for what happened in the last minute, when a freshman running back was given the ball and, from what I could tell from a replay, was holding it with one arm after his run ended up in a mass of Stanford players desperate to strip him of it.

I feel bad about the Ducks' loss. I'm sure CJ Verdell feels much worse. And Head Coach Cristobal should feel way worse than that, because it was his decision to run the ball instead of doing any of the other things Canzano laid out that cost the Ducks a much-needed win.

Any time you blow a 17-point lead and lose, it's going to hurt. But Oregon's 38-31 defeat at the hands of Stanford is going to burn for a long time for one big reason: the Ducks were a couple of quarterback kneels away from winning but decided to do something more complicated instead — and it ended up costing them the game.

Here was the situation with 51 seconds left in the game: Oregon, up 31-28, was facing 2nd and 3 from the Stanford 40. The Cardinal had one timeout in their pocket. Kneeling it out would have left Oregon punting the ball away from somewhere around the Stanford 45 with 19 seconds left to play. Even if the punt is shanked, that's a long way to go with no timeouts to get into field goal range.

I'm no football expert. I've watched a lot of Oregon football games, though. My general impression is that, especially in recent years, the Ducks have suffered from an excess of what I'll call "cuteness," for lack of a better term.

For example, I recall that not long ago the Ducks coaching staff was enamored of going for two points after a touchdown, rather than kicking a virtually guaranteed extra point. That occasionally paid off for them, until one game where, I painfully recall, Oregon would have won if the coach had gone for a single extra point, rather than repeatedly failing at going for two.

Too much cuteness.

And I can't remember exactly what happened after the "touched pylon" touchdown yesterday was nullified by a video review, and the ball placed at the one yard line. I just recall the announcers talking about a curious substitution move by the Oregon coaching staff that may have impacted the fumble on the next play.

Again, too cute. Geez. You've got a first down on the one-yard line. Let your most experienced players run the ball in for a touchdown and put a dagger into Stanford's (metaphorical) back.

But no, that didn't happen. Along with other errors by both Oregon players and coaches, this got the Ducks a win... of sorts: USA Today ranked the Oregon-Stanford game #1 on their Misery Index. Yeah, sounds absolutely right to me.

There is no difference in the standings between losing a game and giving one away. Supposedly, they all count the same.

But everyone knows that’s not really true. Some losses count more than others, and for Oregon, the win they let slip away Saturday night was as bad as it gets.

Stanford 38, Oregon 31 in overtime is the kind of result that could linger over the program and coach Mario Cristobal for a while, particularly because the Ducks were twice on the doorstep of a triumph that would have instantly solidified their credibility as a Pac 12 force.

Instead, the Ducks collapsed after leading 24-7. They watched a game they fully controlled late into the third quarter flip entirely in the span of just a few minutes thanks to two fumbles within the shadow of the goal line, the second of which Stanford returned for an 80-yard touchdown.

Then, when they had seemingly done enough to hold on, they were undone by an inexplicably poor coaching decision.

Cristobal’s refusal to put the Ducks in victory formation in the closing 90 seconds and instead get one more first down not only was a poor risk-reward assessment but also bad math. Is it more likely your running back will fumble trying to get a first down or that you’ll have a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown with no time left on the clock?

Those were the only two ways Oregon could lose. And they did, which puts the Ducks on top of the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of knee-jerk reactions based on what each fan base just watched.

June 29, 2018

OK, I've put my philosophical reputation on the line with the title of this blog post.

So I'll buy some time for my mind to come up with the promised deep thoughts by bringing readers of this post up to speed on the thoroughly mind-boggling play that cost the Arkansas baseball team the College World Series championship.

I live in Oregon, not far from Corvallis, the home of the Oregon State University (OSU) Beavers baseball team. So last Wednesday I was rooting for the Beavers to win the second game in the best out of three championship series with the Arkansas Razorbacks.

OSU had lost the first game in the series on Tuesday. So another loss would have given Arkansas the World Series championship.

In the ninth inning the Beavers had a man on third with two outs. Cadyn Grenier was batting. I'll let a New York Post story tell the tale, which you can see in all its historic glory in the video above. The score at the time of the pop-up was Oregon State 2 and Arkansas 3.

Oregon State hadn’t been able to catch a break in the College World Series finals. And then the ninth inning happened Wednesday night.

Three Arkansas fielders watched a foul ball drop between them with two outs. If one of them catches the ball, the Razorbacks would have locked up the national championship.

No one did.

Cadyn Grenier singled in the tying run, and Trevor Larnach followed with a two-run homer into the right-field bullpen to give the Beavers the lead in a 5-3 win that forced a third and deciding third game on Thursday night.

“As soon as you see the ball drop, you know you have another life,” Grenier said. “I needed to refocus and make the most of that extra life we got. That’s a gift.”

Now, things went from bad to worse for the Arkansas baseball team the next night, since OSU beat them 5-0 and walked away as 2018 NCAA Division 1 champions.

So because none of the three Arkansas players apparently called for the ball, and second baseman Carson Shaddy overran the pop-up, this single mistake -- which would be understandable in a junior high game, but not the College World Series -- had huge consequences.

The screenshot above is from the You Tube video. It shows the ball after it bounced off the ground in the middle of the triangle formed by the three players.

Who I have a lot of empathy for, notwithstanding the joy I felt after the botched pop-up led to OSU winning the game, then going on to win the College World Series.

I suspect that these three guys are going to have "If only I'd..." thoughts running through their minds for a long time. "If only I'd called for the ball... If only I hadn't overrun it... If only I'd stepped forward and made the catch."

That's natural.

Yet I hope that I'm wrong, and these three highly competent baseball players are able to stop beating themselves up over this play fairly soon. Because this won't be the last time they'll face a major If Only moment. Life is full of them. It isn't at all unusual to recognize, in retrospect, how a simple failure to do this or that leads to complex consequences.

And those consequences, as in this case, can be far greater than the seemingly slight mistake. Conceptually, this is due to chaos being the way the world often works. Not in the sense of things being totally screwed up and unstable, but in the scientific sense of small causes having large unpredictable effects.

These causes and effects occur in a deterministic fashion, according to chaos theory. Of course, many, if not most, people believe that we humans are somehow exempt from the determinism that rules the rest of the natural world. Meaning, we have free will.

But free will is just a belief.

There's good reason to accept that people are just as much a part of the deterministic world as everything else is. I've read many books that argue just that. For example, in his book "Free Will," Sam Harris argues that if someone does something, and it were possible to rewind the universe so that every atom was in the same state as when the something was done, that someone would do exactly the same thing again.

Which makes perfect sense.

If the three Arkansas baseball players who failed to catch the pop-up were in precisely the same positions, with the same frame of mind, with the same location of the ball, in short, with everything happening exactly as it did before, what else could occur but what did occur in the ninth inning of the second game of the 2018 College World Series?

So "If only..." really doesn't apply in a deterministic world, which appears to be the world we live in, the only things that can happen are the things that do happen, and if the conditions that make those things happen remain the same, the same things are going to happen.

June 24, 2018

I've been hugely enjoying watching the Oregon State University (OSU) baseball team wend its way through the loser's bracket of the 2018 College World Series.

Now, I readily admit that I'm a "fair weather" OSU Beavers fan, since every year I only start watching them when the NCAA playoffs start.

(I do have a good excuse, though, since I have DirecTV, and the super-irritating pissing match between DirecTV and the Pac 12 Networks shows no sign of being resolved. Thus it's only when OSU games show up on ESPN that I can record and watch them.)

Back in high school, though, I was an avid San Francisco Giants fan, living as we did in central California.

Since Three Rivers was about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, albeit in the foothills of the Sierras, about half of the boys who took the bus from Three Rivers to Woodlake Union High School were Giants fans, and half were LA Dodgers fans.

Ah, I fondly remember the heated arguments we'd have on the bus about whether Juan Marichal or Sandy Koufax was the better pitcher. And here's another interesting memory:

The fact that even now, more than fifty years later, I can pretty clearly remember some of the Giants team that won the pennant in one of my high school years: let's see... Tom Haller, Orlando Cepeda, Willy Mays, Jimmy Davenport, Mattie Alou, the aforementioned Juan Marichal.

I mention this because without much success I've tried to explain to my wife, who is utterly uninterested in sports, why I find watching baseball on TV so engrossing.

It's not so much the action on the field that is important. It's feeling like you know the cast of characters on your favored team. Then watching a game becomes a lot like reading a novel. You care about the outcome because you care about the characters, which in the case of the OSU baseball team are real people, not fictional ones.

Even more: in the case of the College World Series, the drama continues beyond a single game, because this is a double-elimination tournament where a team remains alive until it loses twice.

OSU lost its first game.

So the baseball team needed to win four games in a row to make it into the World Series championship series. Amazingly, and happily, they did just that. I'm looking forward to seeing them play tomorrow against Arkansas in a two out of three series.

Thus though OSU started off as a favorite to win the World Series, after they lost that first game against North Carolina they became underdogs who had to fight their way against considerable odds to make it to the championship series.

The final hurdle was yesterday. After beating Mississippi State, a team that was undefeated in the World Series up to that point, OSU had to beat them again, or be eliminated from the tournament themselves. Hence, it was a must-win game for both teams.

High drama.

And as I just said, the drama is made much more interesting if you feel like you know the players, rather than just seeing them as guys holding a bat, or pitching a baseball, or standing on a baseball field. Yeah, baseball is boring if all you know is what you see.

Which basically is a lot of nothing happening, until occasionally something does.

In yesterday's game, which OSU won 5-2, all of the Beavers' five runs were scored in the third inning. To add to the drama, the four hits that produced the five runs came with two outs in the inning. Four consecutive hits is quite rare, given that a batting average of .333, one hit in every three at bats, is pretty darn good.

So what OSU did, basically, was beat the odds: 1/3 X 1/3 X 1/3 X 1/3 equals 1/81. Meaning, if I've gotten my math correct, if each of the Beavers had a batting average of .333, the odds of four consecutive hits would be one in 81.

But this happened.

And it seemed to happen because some sort of hitting chemistry took place in the third inning. Maybe it was due to the Mississippi State pitcher losing some of his mojo, but watching the game, I felt it was more that the OSU batters willed their way to get the four hits and five runs.

Tyler Malone celebrating

That's the mark of heroes. OSU didn't score again, yet for one inning, with two outs, there was magic on the field -- punctuated by Tyler Malone's massive three run homer that turned out to be the winning margin in the game.

Mississippi State didn't fold, though. In the bottom of the ninth inning they created the baseball equivalent of a "cliffhanger." I was on the edge of my TV-watching seat as a single, a walk, and a hit batter by the OSU pitcher loaded the bases with the winning run at the plate.

And the Mississippi State batter, if my memory is correct, was a guy who had hit a grand slam homer in a previous World Series game.

A quote in today's Oregonian story says this about the OSU pitcher in the ninth inning, Jake Mulholland: "Mully is a drama queen, [Kevin] Abel said." (Abel was the starting pitcher.)

For sure.

Yesterday's game had all the ingredients of a thriller novel that demanded to be read straight through, it was so suspenseful. Just when you thought the good guys would come out on top, if you're an OSU fan, they find themselves in a highly dangerous situation.

It was spellbinding to watch the OSU coach pacing back and forth in the dugout, powerless to do much except watch the drama unfolding on the field. Mulholland looked unhittable for several innings, but when he needed to get the last out that would put OSU in the championship series, it appeared that nerves affected his pitching.

Which was totally understandable.

If Mulholland made just one poor pitch, the Mississippi State batter could hit a home run, ending the OSU baseball team's dream of making it to the championship series, and hopefully winning it. For the rest of his life that one poor pitch would nag at him. He'd wish he could take it back, but since life only goes in one direction, that would be impossible.

During the ninth inning the OSU catcher, star second baseman, and, I recall, other members of the team went out to the mound to talk with Mulholland. I have no idea what they said. I can imagine, "Relax," "You've got this," "We've got your back," and such.

In the end, Mulholland threw a pretty good pitch, the Mississippi State batter hit it to the OSU shortstop, and after a bit of trouble getting the ball out of his mitt, he threw it to Nick Madrigal for a force-out at second base.

Happy ending, for OSU fans. Sad ending, for Mississippi State fans. A thriller, for everybody watching the game. Baseball can be hugely entertaining. But really only if you know the cast of characters, which makes a drama much more engrossing.

May 26, 2018

I'm an end of season softball and baseball fan, because we have DirecTV and they still don't carry the Pac 12 Network after so many years, I've stopped counting.

But today ESPN showed important games for both the University of Oregon softball team, which needed a win over Kentucky to advance to the Women's College World Series, and the Oregon State baseball team, which needed a win over UCLA to have a chance of winning the Pac 12 championship, plus get a better seeding in the NCAA playoffs.

My conclusion: women's softball is way more entertaining than men's baseball.

Now, this is something I've been aware of ever since I started watching softball games. The Ducks' exciting comeback win in the final inning over Kentucky last year convinced me of that.

But today's viewing added more fuel to that conclusion.

And it wasn't just because the U of O Ducks won, while the OSU Beavers lost. It was how the games were played that made watching softball so much more enjoyable.

(2) In softball, a runner doesn't get to take a lead from the base they're on. Thank you, softball!

Today I watched a UCLA pitcher throw to first base about a zillion (or so) times in a row for some reason or another. The announcers thought it was because the pitcher wasn't comfortable with making a throw to the hitter, so he kept throwing to first base to buy more time.

Whatever the reason, it was super-boring. Softball runners still steal bases, by the way. There just isn't the not-fun-to-watch drama between a pitcher and a runner on first base created by the ability to take a lead in baseball.

(3) The women who play softball appear to be having more fun than the men who play baseball. Their celebrations appear more genuinely happy. Their cheers are more creative, with better choreography.

And I've never seen a softball player, or a softball coach, spit. Which makes me wonder why men need to. Don't both sexes have the same amount of saliva?

(4) I don't think this is due to a difference in athleticism, but softball is more unpredictable.

Today I saw two U of O runners try to occupy third base at the same time. And in the end, both were safe, owing to the Kentucky third basewoman's inability to make a throw to second when one of the runners had to retrace her steps.

Again, the unpredictability of softball seems to have more to do with the ball (larger) and how the game is played, rather than the ability of the players. Errors do seem to be more common in softball, but I consider this a good thing, as it makes a game more interesting.

(5) Softball games last for seven innings, not nine. That's plenty.

And softball has an eight-run rule. Meaning, if a team has had five at-bats, and they're behind by eight runs or more, the game is over. I'm not sure what the reason is for this, especially given my impression that softball is more unpredictable, but it does speed the game along, as happened today.

(6) Softball pitchers actually spend most of their time pitching, not shaking off signs, throwing to first, pondering the nature of the cosmos, or whatever baseball pitchers do when they're not throwing a ball to the plate.

I always record college baseball games, because I don't have the patience to watch them live. But I watched today's softball game live, and I didn't feel bored at all.

I've got a 30 second advance on my DirecTV remote. With baseball games, often I'll press it several times and the pitch count hasn't even changed. (That feature also is a must when I watch professional golf, where a putt can take an eternity, more or less, to occur.)

Anyway, I look forward to watching the Oregon Ducks softball team in the Women's College World Series. They've been in the Series six times, but have never won it. I'll also be rooting for the OSU baseball team to make it to the Men's College World Series.

But for sure I'll need to record the baseball games so I can fast forward until something interesting happens.

May 27, 2017

I just finished watching the Oregon softball team come from behind in the final inning to beat Kentucky and advance to the Women's College World Series.

It was an amazing game.

Since I was recording it, and the Ducks were down a distressing 5-2 at the end of the sixth, I figured there was little chance a comeback was in order. So I acceded to our dog's wordless demand and took her for a walk just before the seventh inning got underway.

Returning home, I settled in to watch the final inning. The end result -- four runs scored in the top of the seventh and holding Kentucky scoreless in the bottom of the inning -- led to this joyous celebration by the Oregon softball team that had me feeling happy also.

Mostly for the Ducks, since I live in Salem, Oregon.

But part of the smiling I felt inside myself arose from memories of how pitifully limited girls' sports were back in my high school days, 1962-66. I just checked my senior yearbook to make sure I recalled correctly that the only sports available to girls at Woodlake Union High School (central California) were tennis and swimming.

Yes, that was the case. Boys had football, basketball, baseball, track, wrestling, tennis, and swimming.

Miranda Elish, a freshman, pitched the final innings for the Ducks. She was remarkably poised in the crucial bottom of the seventh, when Kentucky had their 2-3-4 hitters coming up. I'm pretty sure I was more nervous than she was when she got behind in the count -- then proceeded to either strike out the batter or retire them without a hit.

Now, I realize that I'm damn old. It's been over fifty years since I graduated from high school.

Obviously a lot of societal change can happen in half a century. Still... reading Elish's softball background on the GoDucks web site hit home to me how great it is that girls today have so many more athletic (and other) options in high school than was the case in the not-so-good-old-days of the 1960s.

HIGH SCHOOLRanked the No. 1 recruit in the nation by FloSoftball.com…Three-time Indiana Gatorade Player of the Year…A MaxPreps first team All-American in 2016...Went 15-2 in her senior season with a 0.41 ERA with 196 strikeouts in 103 innings with just 13 walks...At the plate as a senior, hit .505 with seven homers and 26 RBIs...Posted a 0.65 ERA and a 15-1 record with 198 strikeouts in 107 inning as a junior…Allowed just 39 hits as a junior while collecting 46 hits as a batter…Was the MaxPreps National Sophomore of the Year in 2014 and was also named first team All-State and conference Player of the Year…As a sophomore, went 24-1 with a 0.31 ERA with 223 strikeouts and 18 walks in 137 innings.

CLUBLed her club team, the Beverly Bandits to a national championship (16U) in the summer before her sophomore year…Played with Jenna Lilley and Alexis Mack on the Bandits.

The Kentucky softball team seemed almost as equally skilled as the Oregon team. Heck, to get to a super-regional and be two games away from the Women's Softball World Series, they'd have to be. (Friday Oregon won the first game in the best of three series, so Kentucky needed to win today and then also tomorrow.)

In the top of the fifth, Oregon was behind 3-1 to Kentucky but had runners at second and third with two out.

The Ducks batter hit the ball hard into the gap between the shortstop and second base. It should have been a hit, tying the game. But this blurry photo from my recording of the game shows the Kentucky shortstop catching the yellow ball while stretched full out and flying through the air about a foot off the ground. (The camera was shooting through a net.)

It was one of the most athletic plays I've ever seen on a ball field. Softball or baseball.

Yeah, women can hit, throw, run, pitch, and field the ball. Not in the same way as men do, of course. But damn well, based on the Oregon softball games I've watched with great enjoyment the past few weeks as they've won at both the regional and super-regional level.

So congratulations to the Ducks softball team for making it to the World Series after a heartbreaking loss last year to UCLA in the super-regional.

Also, congratulations to girl's/women's sports in general. I realize that youngish people today take female athletic opportunities for granted, since they've grown up with (almost) equal opportunity in this area.

But as I've noted, older folks like me look upon 21st century high school and college women's sports through eyes that marvel at how far females have come. Given how many inequities still exist in this country, it's good to know that some things have gotten a lot better.

Like the ability of skilled, talented, personable, athletic women such as those who make up the Ducks softball team to play at such a high level. Whether or not they finish on top in the College Softball World Series, they're winners.

November 19, 2012

There was a lot not to like in how the Oregon football team lost last Saturday to Stanford. Aaron Fentress of the Portland Oregonian nailed the awesome awfulness of the loss in a story today.

Saturday's defeat ranks as one of the most disappointing in the program's history. All but gone are the Ducks' national title hopes. Claiming a fourth consecutive Pac-12 title will require help from others. A potential fourth consecutive trip to a BCS bowl game could dissolve into a trip to the Holiday Bowl.

...On the field, Oregon looked dreadful on Saturday. Its running game was stuffed. The passing game was rough. Oregon has made field-goal kicking a form of witchcraft the Ducks can't quite figure out.

Blend all of that together and you have arguably the most disappointing loss in program history.

l'll drink to that last statement. Much more than usual.

I'm typically a one-glass-of-red-wine guy. But after finishing watching a recording of the Oregon-Stanford game late Saturday night, I felt like becoming an alcoholic for a while so I could drown my memories of the many horrific moments that added up to an enormously frustrating loss.

Here's the image that sticks in the mind the most. Meaning, the worst. Watch the first 45 seconds of this video.

De'Anthony Thomas running ahead of quarterback Marcus Mariota as Mariota approached the Stanford end zone after a scintillating 77 yard gain. Mariota was tackled at the 15 yard line by a defender who ran up on him from behind.

An untouched defender, because Thomas was blissfully looking at the end zone from in front of Mariota and never noticed the Stanford player. Amazingly, after the game Thomas said:

“I was just running and trying to be a lead blocker,” Thomas said. “I didn’t even see the guy behind (Mariota).

“I just thought he was already out there (in the clear) and he was running to score a touchdown.”

Now, I've never played competitive football. However, I'm pretty damn sure about this: if Thomas is the lead blocker, and he's twenty yards from the end zone, not seeing any Stanford player in front of him to block, maybe he should consider the possibility that all of the Stanford players are behind him, and he should look around to see if Mariota needs some blocking help in that direction.

That play was a game changer. Oregon ended up with zero points after Mariota was tackled at the 15 yard line. The Ducks lost in overtime by three points.

It's often said that football, like other sports, is a game of inches. I get that.

An Oregon field goal bounced off a goal post. A controversial Stanford touchdown came down to a replay review of a reception that was right on the borderline between "complete" and "incomplete." In overtime a Duck defender reached out for a fumble and barely missed grabbing it, which would have stopped the Stanford series that ended with the game-winning field goal.

But Thomas' play on the Mariota run was much more disturbing.

It reflected a cluelessness about basic football technique which someone with Thomas' talent and experience should have well in hand. If your quarterback is on his way to a touchdown, make sure you block any defenders trying to tackle him.

Don't focus mindlessly on the goal line, seemingly looking forward to the high five's and chest bumps that you and Mariota are going to exchange in the end zone on national TV.

I could be wrong, but Thomas strikes me as me as someone who isn't big on self-examination or self-criticism. He's got a whatever, dude attitude and an air of uncaring coolness that rubbed my Duck fan'ness the wrong way.

September 05, 2011

Me, little blogger Brian, is going to explain why the Oregon Ducks, ranked #3 in the country for a frustratingly brief time this 2011 football season, lost ignominiously to the LSU TIgers last Saturday.

(The final score 40-27, doesn't reflect how badly the Ducks were dominated by the Tigers.)

My qualifications for this feat?

I've never played organized football at any level. I watch a lot of college football on TV but haven't gone to a live game for decades. I know next to nothing about the intricacies of play calling, defensive and offensive strategizing, all that X's and O's stuff.

But I know what I feel. And watching the Oregon - LSU game a few days ago left me feeling that the Ducks offense has caught a serious case of uncertainty.

Last season the Ducks were like a hurry-up-offense force of nature. I could feel the power, the confidence, the attitude of you can't stop us. Once the offense got rolling, the speed with which they ran plays obviously disconcerted the opposing defense.

I could tell how quickly the Ducks were playing by how often, and how much, I needed to press the "back six seconds" button on my DirecTV DVR after pressing the "forward 30 seconds" button after a play was called dead in order to avoid announcer blather; usually a college team takes almost exactly 30 seconds to get the next play underway, but with the Ducks I'd usually have to rewind to catch the beginning of the play.

But at the end of last season, especially in the BCS Championship game, and notably last Saturday, quarterback Darron Thomas habitually engaged in start-and-stop behavior that struck me as seriously disruptive to the offensive flow.

Everything would look fine as the Duck offense lined up for a play. I'd think, "Quick, run the play, keep the pressure on." But instead:

Thomas would look toward the sideline. Then quite a few Ducks would get out of their stance and do the same thing. Thomas then would jog up to various players, apparently whispering "this now is the play" words in their ears. Or maybe he was telling them what kind of pizza he planned to eat after the game. I don't know.

Regardless...

This got really old after a while. I didn't keep track of how often the Ducks failed to run their usual speedy offense, but it was a high percentage of the plays. I'd watch the play clock and realize that this supposedly hurry-up offense was taking almost the entire time available to them.

So what's the point of all this (1) get-ready-for-the-play, then (2) get-out-of-the-ready-for-the-play stance, followed by (3) talk-it-over-while-the-LSU-defense-calmly-looks-on?

It made the Duck offense look more than a little ridiculous, especially when after all this hemming and hawing the play would net a whole two yards, or whatever.

Whoopee. (I believe the Ducks had less than 100 yards rushing for the entire game.)

Now, I don't really know what Thomas and the rest of the Duck offense are doing when they stand up, look over toward the sideline, and apparently peer at the strange cards held up to indicate the play.

Back in the old days, I recall, quarterbacks called the play in the huddle, usually on their own. Then the offense would break the huddle, get in their stances, and run the play.

Sweet and simple. Also, clear and confident.

My impression of the Oregon Ducks football team, v. 2011, is that it's become too obsessed with cuteness. Not exactly in an appearance sense, though there's some of that too (the uniforms worn in the LSU game didn't project a sense of macho toughness, but rather isn't this a slimming look?

LSU, like other SEC teams, and like big powerful teams from other conferences that regularly beat up the Ducks in crucial games, simply outmuscled and outplayed Oregon.

Razzle-dazzle, running backward to go forward, carrying the ball in one hand, fancy option fakes/handoffs -- the Ducks were really cute. But especially now that other coaches are deeply familiar with Oregon's offensive style, cuteness isn't going to cut it.

I hope the Ducks offense gets back to its previous version of smash-mouth football. Oregon won't ever look like a southern or mid-west team filled with 300 pound muscled human hunks of corn-fed beef. The Eugene vibe is too organic for that.

But most of the time, at least run your damn plays without looking like you're changing your mind. Less cute and more cutthroat, then maybe you'll go 11-1 this year.